U.S. Roland Garros Wild Card Playoffs

The USTA announced today that six men and six women have been invited to participate in its 2011 French Open Wild Card Playoffs, held April 20-22 at the Boca West Country Club in Boca Raton, Fla. The USTA and the French Tennis Federation have a reciprocal agreement in which men’s and women’s singles main draw wild cards into the 2011 French Open and the 2011 US Open are exchanged. Ryan Sweeting, who won his first ATP World Tour title at the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships earlier this month, and Christina McHale, who recently broke into the WTA Top 100, won the 2010 playoffs to earn wild cards into the 2010 French Open.

The six men who will compete include: Andrea Collarini (Boca Raton, Fla.), who reached the boys’ singles final at the 2010 French Open; Jordan Cox (Duluth, Ga.), the 2009 Wimbledon boys’ singles runner-up; Denis Kudla (Arlington, Va.), the 2010 US Open boys’ singles runner-up; Tim Smyczek (Milwaukee, Wisc.), who made his Grand Slam tournament debut at the 2010 US Open after winning a similar playoff to earn a main draw wild card; Donald Young (Atlanta), who recently upset world No. 5 Andy Murray en route to the third round at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif.; and Alexios Halebian (Glendale, Calif.), who upset the world’s top-ranked junior player en route to the semifinals of the 2010 Dunlop Orange Bowl.

The six women invited to compete include: Julia Boserup (Boca Raton, Fla.), the 2008 Dunlop Orange Bowl champion who had her best professional showing on clay last year at the USTA Pro Circuit $50,000 event in Indian Harbour Beach, Fla.; Beatrice Capra (Ellicott City, Md.), who won a similar playoff to earn a wild card into the 2010 US Open and beat then World No. 20 Aravane Rezai en route to the third round; Lauren Davis (Gates Mills, Ohio), who made her Grand Slam tournament debut at the 2011 Australian Open after winning a similar playoff last December to earn a wild card; Irina Falconi (Atlanta), the former collegiate All-American who successfully qualified for both the 2010 US Open and the 2011 Australian Open; Madison Keys (Boca Raton, Fla.), who at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., in 2009 became the youngest player to win a main draw WTA match since Martina Hingis; and Grace Min (Duluth, Ga.), who was the runner-up at the 2010 Dunlop Orange Bowl.

Seedings are based on this week’s ATP World Tour and WTA rankings. Matches will start at 10am ET each day. For the initial draws and today’s order of play, please see the attached document.

Media are invited to attend the event at the Boca West Country Club; however, the event is closed to the public.